Brussels, 17/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 17 April, the European Parliament decided in Strasbourg to delay its decision on discharging management of the budget of the European Council and Council for the 2011 financial year. The Parliament decided to grant discharge to the accounts of all the European agencies. It also gave discharge to the European Commission on management of the EU general budget for 2011.
The Parliament decided to postpone its decision on discharging the Council's 2011 budget. It will vote on this again in the autumn. The MEPs - who criticise the Council's lack of cooperation on budgetary information - nonetheless hope that the Irish Presidency of the EU Council will resolve this longstanding disagreement. The issue concerns how the European Parliament can fulfil its role of discharge authority when it comes to the Council's accounts.
Parliament considers that the budget of the European Council and the Council should be distinct so as to contribute to the transparency of their financial management and to improve the two institutions' responsibility. Parliament notes that, contrary to what was stated by the Council, no gentlemen's agreement has been concluded between the Parliament and Council regarding discharge to the Council.
Relocating the European Police College (CEPOL). The Parliament backed a proposal to relocate CEPOL from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands in order to enable it to share facilities and services with the Hague-based European Police Office. MEPs also voted to encourage stronger cooperation between the three agencies dealing with education and training.
2011 General budget. Parliament approved the Commission's 2011 budget management, underlining that the error rate rose from 3.7% in 2010 to 3.9% in 2011. MEPs are very critical of the way money is spent by national and regional authorities in the area of “shared management”. These funds account for 80% of the EU budget. Sixty per cent of the errors found in shared management spending could have been detected by properly functioning national control systems, Parliament states. It asks the Commission to produce an annual overview of the amounts of misspent money recovered from each member state. Parliament also calls for an end to “retroactive” funding of projects, for which reimbursement claims are made only after the project has been completed - which makes it more difficult to check spending. (LC/transl.fl)